


Tessera Vignettes

by Inquartata (mackillian)



Series: Tessera [10]
Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/F, Flirting with math, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Prompt Fic, Role Reversal, Sick Burn, Thaia Uses the Word Fuck Like Punctuation, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Tropes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 01:19:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17777852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mackillian/pseuds/Inquartata
Summary: Collection of prompts from tumblr





	1. Locked In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "We're locked in."

** The Nexus. **

“We’re locked in,” Thaia said after her fifth failed attempt at hacking the hotel room door.

“ _No_.”

Goddess, the horror in Lexi’s voice was borderline offensive. “Yes, we are.”

“Let me try.”

Thaia rolled her eyes and stepped out of the way so Lexi could access the door panel.

The door panel that was red because it was locked.

After failing three times to get the panel to turn green, Lexi sighed. “And you can’t hack it?”

“You don’t think I tried?”

Lexi gestured at the room around them, one they’d been lured into by Ryder, whom Thaia would never trust again when she said she wanted to show them how cool the new Nexus hotel was. 

“There’s you,” said Lexi, “there’s me, and there’s food and drink enough for at least a day and a night. There isn’t much motivation for you to unlock the door.”

“I’m plenty motivated to open that door because _fun_ would be enticing you into not caring that the door is unlocked because you don’t _want_ to leave.”

“So what you’re saying is this wasn’t your idea?”

“It really wasn’t.” Thaia moved to stand beside Lexi and then rapped on the door with her fist. “Ryder, open this fucking door!”

From the opposite side of the door, Ryder answered immediately, “It’ll open at nine tomorrow morning! You’re fine!”

“Lexi,” Thaia said slowly, “I regret to inform you that I’m going to be airlocking your patient.”

“Not if I get to her first,” said Lexi.

“By the way,” Ryder said cheerfully, as if two people hadn’t just threatened to kill her, “there’s only one bed! Have fun!”


	2. Tea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "What are you hiding?"

** The Tempest. **

If Drack hadn’t dropped what could’ve been the entire front axle of the Nomad with how loudly it clanged outside the medbay, Lexi would never have looked up. But Drack had and Lexi had and here Thaia stood with a cup of cold tea in her hand—the cup from Lexi’s desk because Thaia had just replaced it with fresh tea without Lexi having noticed and Lexi was supposed to _keep_ not noticing when Thaia did this and Drack might’ve ruined it.

Thaia put the cup behind her back before Lexi looked toward her instead of the door.

Because that would work.

Obviously.

“Oh, I didn’t realize you were in here,” said Lexi. “Did you need something?”

“Nope, just stopping by to see how you’re doing and you’re fine so I’ll leave you to your research.” Which Thaia knew must be extensive because Lexi hadn’t left the medbay in around four hours, which meant she’d probably forgotten her tea, which meant it was gross-ass cold, so like the other times Thaia had done this, she’d applied her commando skills and replaced Lexi’s tea _without_ disturbing her so her concentration wouldn’t be broken.

Then Drack had shattered her concentration when he’d dropped whatever the fuck it was he’d dropped. Maybe an entire drive train with how fucking loud it’d been.

Lexi spun her chair to fully face Thaia. 

Because Thaia was a shit liar.

But anyone finding out about this— _including_ Lexi, or maybe _especially_ Lexi—was mortifying because who used a commando’s stealth ability to replace someone’s tea? No one because it was weird. Stalker weird, her partner’s tea or not. Thaia wasn’t trying to be weird. She just wanted to help and she was shit at biology and if she broke Lexi’s concentration, Lexi would have to keep at it longer.

“What are you hiding?” asked Lexi.

“Nothing!”

“What’s behind your back?”

Thaia side-stepped—all right, it was more of a side-shuffle—toward the door. “Potential complete embarrassment, so if you _really_ love me you’ll just let me go now and pretend this never happened.”

Lexi stood up.

_Fuck_. Bluff called.

“None of what you said could possibly be true because you, Althaia Kallistrate, have no shame.”

Well. Lexi was mostly not wrong.

“Maybe I found some.” In a cup of gross-ass cold tea, but whatever.

“Really?”

“Potentially.”

“Did you steal something of mine again?” Lexi asked as she closed the distance between them.

“Hey, _you_ threw your stylus at _me_ , so I was well within my rights to keep it.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

_Fuck_. She’d just had to fall in love with an insightful as fuck psychologist.

The problem was that she couldn’t say ‘no, it isn’t yours,’ because the cup was technically Lexi’s. One of the two identical cups she’d brought with her from the Milky Way because they were from her favorite cafe near the university she’d attended for medical school. But Thaia hadn’t stolen it. She was going to dump out the cold tea and wash it and put it on the shelf where Lexi usually kept her clean cups. Which totally wasn’t weird but maybe was. 

“I’m borrowing it,” she said, like Lexi would just accept that answer even though it confirmed that Thaia had, in fact, taken something of Lexi’s.

“Then may I have it back?” Lexi asked all nicely and reasonably.

Except Lexi had pressed up against her while she’d asked because Thaia had run out of room to retreat and now Lexi was wrapping her arms around Thaia to get to the thing Thaia held behind her back.

Which she did.

Thaia sighed. 

Lexi drew back far enough to inspect the cup. “This is my cup.”

“Yes.”

“Are you saying my cup is filled with shame?”

“It’s mostly filled with gross old tea, actually.”

“My tea is on my desk. Were you going to play a prank?”

“No! I wouldn’t do that to anyone, much less you.”

“Then why do you have it?”

Thaia forced herself to keep looking at Lexi and not at the floor even though her cheeks burned. “When’s the last time you left the medbay?”

“Not that long ago.“

“Then when’s the last time you looked at a clock?” 

Lexi raised her eyebrows when she checked the time. “I’d thought it wasn’t that long ago. But that doesn’t explain why—” She broke off and looked over at her desk and then back at Thaia. Her voice contained a pleasant, amused note when she asked, “Did you bring me fresh tea?” 

“Maybe.” Now her fucking cheeks were _on fire_.

“Maybe.” The beginnings of a smile curved the corners of Lexi’s mouth upward. “And you’re embarrassed by it?”

“I thought it might’ve been weird.”

“It isn’t weird. It’s thoughtful.” Lexi used her free hand to pull Thaia down into a soft kiss. Then she said, “I love you.”

Thaia smiled that dumb smile she got when Lexi said that. Then when Lexi laughed, Thaia rolled her eyes, reclaimed the cup, and darted from the medbay.


	3. Check and Mate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "I've been checking you out."

** The Tempest. **

As with any of Thaia’s messages, she didn’t bother explaining herself before jumping right in.

> _Check out this graph_.

> Thaia, what is this?

> _I’ve been checking you out, but I can’t find the right equation to describe who and what I’m looking at._

> According to your graph, it looks like I _do_ check out.

> _No, it isn’t quite right. Here, this one’s better. The curves were missing from the other one_.

Lexi sighed. Then she decided against resignation and fought back.

> Here.

> _Asymptotic function? What’s that for?_

> It’s an explanation of our relationship. Close, but not touching.

> _There are way better asymptotic functions with way better results._

> _See?_

> You’ve already done the math for the future of our relationship, have you?

> _Fuck_.

> It does appear to happen. Many times, in fact. I certainly look forward to seeing you when you get back.

> _…I have no words._

> Not even another equation?

> _Nope, I’m done. You win. I’m going to go airlock myself._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last asymptotic graph is from the[ asymptote wikipedia article](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Asymptote02_vectorial.svg). I modified it to grayscale.


	4. An Improbable Reversal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A prompt fill for [thewritemoment](https://thewritemoment.tumblr.com): “Imagine your OTP in reverse roles and write a scene about it.” Wherein we stretch the limits of our imagination. Not of Lexi T’Perro being a commando instead of a doctor, but somehow Thaia Kallistrate managing to graduate from medical school and proceed to practice medicine. Successfully. In a Reaperless Milky Way AU of some kind.

**ARNC Nefrane, 2188.**

“Oh, that is _so_ gross. The laceration ripped your arm open down to the bone.”

Lexi narrowed her eyes at the doctor assigned to her—Dr. Kallistrate, she’d said during their brief introductions. “Are you _sure_ you’re a doctor?”

Thaia flashed a smile that was dangerously compelling. “The whole having a medical degree and having a license to practice medicine points to yes, I am. However, I better hurry up and fix your arm so I don’t throw up on it.” Dr. Kallistrate’s grin transformed into a grimace. “Or, even worse, _in_ it.”

Lexi stared and _not_ because certain assets of the doctor’s had caught her attention when she’d turned to rummage in a drawer for what Lexi assumed would be medical instruments. “Why would—are you telling me you’re squeamish?”

“Little bit.” Dr. Kallistrate reached up to fetch something from a cabinet didn’t help Lexi’s tertiary—the one _after_ her laceration and being unsure about legitimacy of this doctor’s credentials—predicament because no doctor should possess shoulders like that and that lab coat did nothing to hide how muscled the body underneath must be.

If Lexi was this distracted despite her injury, maybe the medic down on Chalkhos had administered too high a dose of painkillers along with the anesthetic.

Lexi concentrated on her potentially shoddy medical care and not on how Dr. Kallistrate’s lab coat also wonderfully highlighted certain curvy aspects of her matronhood, and that she was on the younger side of matronhood, which meant she was likely very good at melding and… she’d better stop right there. “ _How_ did you get through medical school?”

Gauze and antiseptic wash in hand, Dr. Kallistrate walked back toward the exam table. “You know what they call the person who graduates last in their med class?”

Goddess, she shouldn’t engage in this. And yet. “What?”

The grin returned in full. “Doctor!”

“If you graduated last in your class, I’m requesting another physician.”

“It was a joke. I was right smack in the middle. Would’ve been higher if I wasn’t so squeamish.”

“How can anyone be squeamish _and_ a doctor?”

“When you’re squeamish,” Dr. Kallistrate said as she set her supplies down next to where Lexi sat, “you’re highly motivated to keep insides in or put things back where they belong and heal them up so they stay there.” She considered the arrayed instruments and then looked at Lexi. “That said, you want a gnarly scar when I patch this up or no?”

“There is,” Lexi said, slow and deliberate, “something wrong with you.”

That dazzling smile of Dr. Kallistrate’s emerged once more. “Not first time someone’s told me that.”

After seeing that smile again, it took Lexi longer than she liked to regain her ability to speak. “I doubt it’ll be the last, either.”


End file.
